Christmas Movies My: Top 10
As a huge movie lover – after all, it’s all story-telling – I often watch by category. Sometimes by actor, director, or maybe theme. So naturally I have my Christmas movie list. With moving around – and a recent tendency to party or socialize instead at night – I may have slipped a little in the last few years. But this is my current list for this year which I share with you.
It is a mix of old favourites, and only 10 top picks. To be honest, my Christmas list is generally quite extensive. I typically have a problem of keeping the list to just 24 movies, one for each day in December.
Movie preferences are always personal. Do you agree with my selection? Do you have any that you consider a must in such a top 10?
I dare you to agree, or disagree! And maybe have some that I haven’t yet explored to put into my list for next year.
1 Die Hard
In spite of the controversy, I think this is always a good start to Christmas – a great and action-packed movie, set at Christmas. A classic Bruce Willis movie, with Alan Rickman in one of his first roles, one that clinched his movie acting career (he already had a major reputation in theatre). The movie dates way back to 1988 (the decade of many top movies). Detective McClane gets tangled in a hostage situation when he arrives to meet his estranged wife for Christmas – one in the skyscraper where she is at her company’s Christmas party.
Fun Fact: The look on Alan Rickman’s face when he falls is 100% real. They said they’d let go after counting to 3, but made the drop at 1.
2 Family Man
This lesser-known Nicolas Cage movie from 2000 is one of those alternative reality movies, set around Christmas. He is a high-flying executive and bachelor living the good life, and acting the scrooge by calling his employees re-convene on Christmas Day for a business emergency. But on Christmas Day he wakes up in an alternative life, the one he chose to walk away from 13 years earlier when he left his girlfriend for an internship in London. This is a charming ‘what if’ movie with Tea Leoni and Don Cheadle.
Fun Fact: I am heading to Morocco next month for movie extra work in a Nicolas Cage movie filming there over the couple of months.
3 Home Alone
For a long time I found this movie just silly, but more recently I sat down for a fresh look and changed my mind. Definitely in the Christmas theme here, it’s a fun romp into the Christmas spirit from this 1990 Chris Columbus movie. Just in case you don’t know what this one is about, a very large family heads off to Paris for Christmas, but forgets their son Kevin (Macaulay Culkin), leaving him behind, home alone. This just happens to coincide with a burglary attempt by some thieves, including Joe Pesci and John Candy, and ensues some very creative home protective measures by Kevin outwitwhile his family gets their act together over their forgotten son.
Fun Fact: Chris Columbus not only directed the first two Harry Potter movies and Mrs Doubtfire (Robin Williams), but has directed, written or produced more than half a dozen other Christmas movies including Christmas with the Kranks and Jingle All the Way, all of which I have watched several times each.
4 Edward Scissorhands
This one is back to the ‘just set at Christmas’ thing, but I’ve always found it such a sweet fairy tale and so magical, with its bizarre tongue-in-cheek story with ducks on the walls and pastel matching homes and cars in a surreal 1950s landscape. To me it perfectly matches the spirit of Christmas. This 1990 movie was directed by Tim Burton, and is an early Johnny Depp, also starring Winona Ryder. Told in true fairy tale style to explain what the snow really is in this small village, it is the story of an old and lonely inventor who created a human son for himself, Edward. His last gift was the hands, which he was still working on. Meanwhile, Edward had scissors for hands. When he ventured into the village, they created trouble for the innocent lad.
Fun Facts: The inventor was played by the classic vampire actor Vincent Price, who died at the age of 82 during the filming of Edward Scissorhands. They wrote this into the script as part of the story. This movie was the first of eight times Tim Burton and Johnny Depp partnered up for a movie. What you won’t find on the net, was that I first watched it on release in Japan when I was living there.
5 The Santa Clause
Whether you stick with the first and best one, or take the full 3-movie journey, this one is whimsical fun to put you in the mood for Christmas. Santa Claus has a mishap on the roof and transfers his identity to a hapless Tim Allen (from Home Improvement) via a clause on the name card passed to him by the original Santa. Between his underwhelming efforts as a single dad with father duty for Christmas Day, and a son who still believes in the magic of Christmas, this movie is a total adventure into the Christmas Spirit.
Fun Fact: Tim Allen’s comedy career was started as a dare by a friend to step onto the stage at a comedy club in Michigan, kickstarting his comedy and movie run.
6 Nightmare Before Christmas
A touch of the macabre with a Tim Burton twist, join Johnny Depp in this animation that combines a dark angle and yet still achieves a great feel-good Christmas story. Jack Skellington is in charge of Halloween Town, but becomes obsessed with Christmas and insists on abducting Santa Claus and taking over the arrangements for Christmas. With a delightfully bizarre cast, it’s a total romp of disasters when Jack’s macabre and scary Halloween angle interferes with the otherwise cheeriness of Christmas.
Besides, his sweetheart is called Sally!
Fun Facts: The movie uses 227 handmade puppets, Jack’s alone having over 400 different heads to manage the range of emotions. The intensity of animation meant that in a whole week of production only 70 seconds of footage were finished. Each second of film involved 24 poses for each character.
7 The Grinch Who Stole Christmas
While there are several versions of this Doctor Seuss story, and there may be new ones I need to explore, I can’t get past the delights of the Jim Carrey version. The story has a Grinch living on the mountain above Whoville. He hates Christmas so much he tries to ruin it for the Whovians who take Christmas overboard. The child Lucy questions the excesses, and in the process gets to know the Grinch and learn his story.
Fun Fact: Jim Carrey’s makeup took three and a half hours to prepare and remove each day. The Grinch’s dog Max, was played by a series of rescue dogs that became the heart of everyone onset. Homes were found for all of them at the end of their famous Max roles.
8 Bad Santa
Now we are into my Christmas rundown, the last 3 which are ‘seen at all costs’ right before Christmas. Bad Santa is just so ‘bad’ that every year has me laughing to rofl as I cringe at the transgressions and bad form of Billy Bob Thornton in his role as Santa’, with input by the Coen brothers. I go from grimacing at the “fat kid” Thurman to rooting for his sweet side, and of course, Lauren Graham just lifts the whole thing to a reality that the other characters challenge. Released in 2004, Willie (Billy Bob) and his dwarf assistant are a con duo who’s M.O. is to do the Santa in the shopping mall trick, with a major theft after closing on Christmas Eve. Naturally, this time everything goes wrong for the messed up Santa in bad taste who is the antithesis of Christmas goodwill and cheer.
Fact: This was John Ritter’s (Three’s Company) last movie. He died suddenly before the movie went to air, and the movie was dedicated to him.
9 The Holiday
Now we’re at the hardcore pre-Christmas space, and my last two movies that are not negotiable. Besides loving the amazing Kate Winslet and Cameron Diaz, swooning over Jude Law and revelling in Jack Black’s cheeky character, this 2006 movie is just the ultimate Christmas feelgood with quality (not to say that the B-grade ones don’t have their place!). On a whim, Iris (with a small cottage in snowy UK) and Amanda (in an LA mansion) decide to swap homes for Christmas. Bring in Iris’s brother, Amanda’s friend, a bunch of mishaps and some charming scenarios and self-discoveries, this one has all the marks of everything that is good about a Christmas movie.
Fun Fact: Dustin Hoffman appears in an unplanned and unscripted cameo, and Kate Winslet had previously actually had a real romance with Rufus Sewell who played Jasper.
10 Love Actually
Which way I watch these last two is always a toss-up, but this one captivates everything that is the Christmas spirit. With a stellar cast including Emma Thompson, Alan Rickman, Colin Firth, Liam Neeson, Kiera Knightly, 8 separate stories weave and interconnect around Christmas, woven around a rerelease of a song with Christmas lyrics by Bill Nighy’s character as the has-been singer. Then I fall in love all over again with Hugh Grant as the prime minister when he does his solo dance through Number 10 Downing Street in this 2003 movie.
Fun Fact: Rowan Atkinson was a cameo in the movie. They filmed at midnight in order to get Selfridges without the crowds. And the most loved scene of the movie was hated at the time of filming – Hugh Grant did not want to do the dance scene, and didn’t enjoy it.
Postscript: And just for fun, spend 30 minutes checking out Shrek the Halls. This is a totally fun crack up and fun – with Shrek, Fiona and Eddy Murphy. But then, that shouldn’t be a surprise.
So this is my list this year, of my 10 picks for movie watching before Christmas. I challenge you to argue with me! Is there one that you think I should have included? Maybe one that I haven’t seen even? Make sure to pick which one it should be swapped with, and explain why yours should be in this list. You may even convince me to include it in my list for next year.
I throw down the gauntlet!